Faull guy backs budget girl

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

11/6/02, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:24 PM CET

The European Commission’s announcement of its legal action against US tobacco giant RJ Reynolds, for alleged money-laundering, involving Saddam Hussein’s son Uday among others, has been somewhat overshadowed.

The International Press Association (API) in Brussels suspects Michaele Schreyer, the budget commissioner, leaked the news to a German TV journalist before the main press briefing. Quelle horreur! German journalist Michael Stabenow, the API’s vice-chairman, said the organisation has made an official complaint.

Jonathan Faull, head of the Commission’s spokesman’s service, dismissed suggestions that Schreyer had leaked details of the suit, hinting that as the story first broke in the US (in The Wall Street Journal), perhaps the complainants should look across the Atlantic before apportioning blame. “Smoke gets around,” he shrugged.

The Commission, which is backed by ten member states in its action against RJ Reynolds, alleges that the tobacco company was aware that its brands were bought by dubious middlemen for sale in countries such as Iraq. The losses involved are thought to be in excess of €700 million.

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …